10 Best Credit Card Offers For July

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Every month I make a post with what I consider to be the best credit card sign-up bonuses of the month.

While there are several excellent long standing credit card offers, the specifics of the best offers are constantly changing (be it the annual fee, minimum spend requirement, or even amount of the sign-up bonus).

With that in mind, below are what I consider to be the best credit card sign-up bonuses for this month. We’re continuing to see Citi really try to aggressively grow their consumer credit card business, which is why several of the top picks for July are from them:

1. Citi Prestige® Card

Current offer: 50,000 ThankYou points after spending $3,000 within the first three months of cardmembershipAnnual fee: $450

Redeem Citi Prestige points for 1.6 cents each towards the cost of an American ticket

2. Citi AAdvantage Executive World Elite Mastercard

Current offer: 75,000 American AAdvantage miles after spending $7,500 within the first three months of cardmembershipAnnual fee: $450

Why it’s a great offer: This card has a limited time increased sign-up bonus. I consider American AAdvantage miles to be among the most valuable out there, as I value them at 1.8 cents each. That makes the 75,000 mile sign-up bonus worth $1,350. Once you deduct the $450 annual fee, that makes this sign-up bonus worth ~$900 to me.

Current offer: 50,000 American AAdvantage miles after spending $3,000 within the first three months of cardmembershipAnnual fee: Introductory annual fee of $0 the first year, then $95

Why it’s a great offer: This card has a limited time increased sign-up bonus. I consider American AAdvantage miles to be among the most valuable out there, as I value them at 1.8 cents each. That makes the 50,000 mile sign-up bonus worth $900.

Current offer: 50,000 ThankYou points after spending $3,000 within the first three months of cardmembershipAnnual fee: $0 annual fee for the first 12 months, then $95

Why it’s a great offer: This card has an improved sign-up bonus at the moment, and goes very well with the Citi Prestige® Card, given that points can be pooled. If you have both cards then you can redeem points for 1.6 cents towards the cost of an American/US Airways ticket, or points can be transferred to one of the ThankYou Rewards transfer partners. If you want to get both cards, you’ll want to apply for them at least eight days apart, as Citi generally won’t approve more than one application per person within a window of eight days.

Current offer: 50,000 Ultimate Rewards points after spending $5,000 within three monthsAnnual fee: Introductory annual fee of $0 the first year, then $95

Why it’s a great offer: I would argue this is the all around best business credit card out there. The Ink cards have extremely generous category bonuses which help sole proprietorships and small businesses maximize points on everyday credit card spend, including 5x points at office supply stores, and on cell phones, internet, and cable TV, and double points on gas and hotels.

Current offer: 40,000 Ultimate Rewards points after spending $4,000 within three months, plus an additional 5,000 Ultimate Rewards points when you add an authorized user to the card that makes a purchase within three months.Annual fee: $95, waived the first year

Why it’s a great offer: Ultimate Rewards points can be transferred at a 1:1 ratio to Korean Air, United, Hyatt, and many other programs. The card is also great for everyday spend given that it offers double points on dining and travel. I value the sign-up bonus on this card at $675.

Current offer: 50,000 Avios after spending $2,000 within three months (offer is only available to applicants that haven’t had the card in the last 24 months)Annual fee: $0 intro annual fee the first year, then $95

Why it’s a great offer: British Airways has a distance based award chart which is extremely lucrative for shorthaul travel, as awards start at just 4,500 Avios one-way. Given that short flights are often disproportionately expensive when paying cash, I’ve found Avios to be incredibly useful. You can also earn a British Airways Travel Together ticket for spending $30,000 on the card in a calendar year.

I value British Airways Avios at 1.3 cents each, so to me the sign up bonus is worth ~$650 to me.

8. Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express and Starwood Preferred Guest® Business Card from American Express

Current offer: Personal — earn 25,000 bonus Starpoints after you use your new Card to make $3,000 in purchases within the first 3 months; Business — 10,000 Starpoints after the first purchase, 15,000 additional Starpoints after spending $5,000 within six months. Terms apply.Annual fee: $0 introductory annual fee for the first year, then $65

Why it’s a great offer: Starpoints remain the most valuable points currency out there to me, and are a great value for both hotel redemptions and airline mileage transfers. I value Starpoints at 2.2 cents each, so this sign-up bonus is worth $550 to me. American Express also recently improved the terms of the sign-up bonus on the personal card, requiring less spend to earn the sign-up bonus.

Why it’s a great offer: I value Marriott Rewards points at 0.8 cents each, so to me 80,000 points are worth $640. Once you factor in the annual fee, that brings the value of the sign-up bonus to $555. Furthermore, the card offers an annual free night certificate valid at Category 1-5 properties, which more than justifies the $85 annual fee. So it’s not only a great sign-up bonus, but a card worth holding onto long term.

Non-Affiliate Product Disclaimer: The information for the Marriott Rewards® Premier Credit Card has been collected independently by One Mile At A Time. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.

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About luckyBen Schlappig (aka Lucky) is a travel consultant, blogger, and avid points collector.
He travels about 400,000 miles a year, primarily using miles and points to fund his first class experiences.
He chronicles his adventures, along with industry news, here at One Mile At A Time.

Regarding Comments: The comments on this page have not been provided, reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any advertiser, and it is not an advertiser's responsibility to ensure posts and/or questions are answered.

Ben, please help me with your knowledge!
I would like to purchase miles with “any” airline and with a hotel chain and I’d like to gift these miles and points to one of my friend as a birthday gift! Is this possible? If yes, how? Since she travels in Europe I think it should be with BA, LH, Swiss, Air France or something like that but every solution counts!

I don’t want her to know about this prior her birthday so I don’t know how could I make this happen. Isn’t it possible to purchase miles and hotel points as a gift like when you purchase a gift card from Apple and they deliver it by email?

An open letter to the growing number of trolls out there. Let me see if I have this right: you want Lucky (or any other points/travel blogger) to be sure to tell you about all the great deals out there ASAP and provide tons of useful info (which I’m sure you have all used to some degree). Yet you have a problem with the fact that he earns any kind of compensation for doing so despite the fact that it doesn’t personally cost you a single penny. These guys could decide tomorrow that it’s not worth it to do all this work and shut down the site. Would that make you happy? Appreciate all the info you are getting FOR FREE and shut up about whether or not he gets referral bonuses. Actually, just go away and take your petulant whining and criticism with you.

Not sure if you’ve seen this yet, but I was able to get the targeted 50,000 MR bonus offer (after $1k in spend) for the personal Gold card to populate and have put up a link to it on my blog. You have to open up a new private/incognito window and then paste the link from the post into the window. You can find the post here: http://theflyingmustache.com/2015/07/06/quick-post-amex-50k-bonus-offer/

Due to the more complicated nature of getting the offer to show up, I’m not sure if it is a perfect fit for your 10 best cards list, but it certainly is a pretty killer offer for the Amex gold card.

@Scott, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the way that most of us get free and cheap travel through big credit card bonuses? So wouldn’t the next logical step, after welcoming new people, be to tell them how to get started obtaining these bonuses? What good does all this information do if you don’t even have a points earning card? I Have to agree with Mike, so tired of seeing these trolls comment on every site everytime one has an affiliate link. Should all of these bloggers be sitting in their mommas basement sharing all of this free info with you, but not making any income? Considering the post is clearly labeled, and not click bait, why even open it or post if your not interested?

@lopere: Non-profit? Why should it be non-profit? Ben earns money this way, you earn money that way. This is his passion, his job, his work, what he loves to do and what he can do the best. Lucky never asked you or anyone to sign-up for a particular credit card and he always clearly makes it visible that he earns money if you use a link on his site to sign-up for a card.

Here I am for instance. I frequently post comments if I feel like Ben is not accurate about something and in turn what he does? He is willing to analyze my point of view and if I’m correct then he writes a post where he corrects himself. He is a good guy, a down-to-earth person. Am I agree with all the things that Ben has posted? Definitely not. Is this a problem? Definitely not! We all have our own opinions. This is his point of view. Just don’t read his site if he makes you angry/upset. You’re free to read any other blog.

@Mike/ @ Colleen/ @ 31583 + 1
I completely agree. This one of the best travel blogs. Stop reading if you don’t like it. No one is forcing you to. And btw, I at some point have had all of these cards. I now only have 8/10.

I agree with Scott and others, that of all the things on Lucky’s blog, this monthly post feels a little slimy. I don’t mind bloggers getting referral commissions at all, but I think they should act as if they have a duty to advise their reader whether they are getting the best offer. If they don’t acknowledge the existing of better offers, it seems dishonest. Two pieces of knowledge that aren’t in this list:
1) For newbies, they should get the CSP in the first round of applications since Chase is cracking down on people who get lots of cards.
2) As other have mentioned, it is likely that SPG will go to 30k shortly. That deserves a mention on some level.

I also think it is a bit sleazy to not mention that there are sometimes higher offers that are somewhat publically available (click this link or make a dummy hotel/airline booking etc.). Sometimes people write in the comments that there is a better offer available if you jump through a certain hoop and Lucky seems to have no interest in pointing his readers to those methods or updating the post. I think Frequent Miler does this best. He tells you about the best offer he knows of.

@ 31583 — I probably wouldn’t gift miles, realistically. If you’re buying the miles from scratch (outside of a promotion), you might not come out ahead versus just purchasing things directly. Redeeming miles is also tricky, so it could be a bit like gifting someone a vacuum cleaner.

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Meet The Team

One Mile at a Time is owned by PointsPros, Inc. This site is for entertainment purposes only. The owner of this site is not an investment advisor, financial planner, nor legal or tax professional and articles here are of an opinion and general nature and should not be relied upon for individual circumstances.

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